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ducation Association 
Uudy No. 37 



Newer Ideals in Education 



The Complete Use 

of the 

School Plant 



AN ADDRESS 

delivered before the Public Education Association 

in the New Century Drawing Room 

January 30, 1912 

by 

WILLIAM A. WIRT 

Superintendent of Schools, Gary, Indiana 



Compliments of the 

Public Education Association of Philadelphia 

1015 Witherspoon Building 

Extra copies may be had on application to the Secretary 

MAY, 1912 






QUI 

liWfc 16 



The Complete Use of the School Plant 

THIS is the first generation of people that has known how to read. The 
matter of universal education, education for everybody, is a new idea 
in civilization, and it is not surprising that all of its problems are not 
yet solved; but we have made a good beginning. Our good fore- fathers 
thought what a fine thing it would be if all the people could read and write, 
for then they could read the Constitution of the United States; they could 
read about the cardinal virtues of frugality and industry, and we would 
have established our representative institutions on a very firm foundation. 
These fore-fathers were very much surprised, however, to find that instead 
of reading the Constitution of the United States and like literature, they 
read about "Deadwood Dick" and all the other "Tom, Dick and Harry" 
stories — a very surprising thing. Strange to say, their citizenship was not a 
very much higher grade than when they could not read and write. 

They decided then that the common schools should not only teach 
reading, writing and arithmetic, but that they should also include the 
principles of good citizenship by organizing courses in history and civics, 
and placing them in the school as class room subjects. While the results of 
this may be a little better, we are not yet satisfied, so that we have had one 
thing after another placed upon the public school curriculum. 

We public school men were startled a few years ago when business men 
and parents of children who attend the public schools blamed us, first, 
because the child did not have the power of concentrating his thoughts in 
one direction until he got somewhere, and, second, because he did not wish 
to do things with his hands when he came out of school. Public school 
people were surprised to learn that they were held responsible. They were 
not able to make a success with certain backward children, they explained, 
because the child did not want to learn, and did not have the power of 
concentration, the very thing that the people outside blamed the schools for. 
To insist that the school should turn out boys and girls of well-rounded 
characters, with the strength of manhood and womanhood was an unheard 
of thing. 



The School and Character Building 

The ordinary parent knows full well that character training of the child 
is inseparably linked with his industrial education and training, and that if 
we are going to get this character value developed, we cannot expect it with 
from five to eight hours idleness on the streets. It is true, there is a certain 
kind of character developed on the streets, but that is not the kind of 
character that we want to develop. The education that the child gets on the 
streets and alleys is effective so far as it goes ; and it gets results in its own 
line. A boy does not need to hear bad language more than once to have it 
indelibly impressed on his mind, and the effect on his morals, his character, 
is much more efficient than his association in the schools. When business 
men and parents have gone behind the scenes, they have learned to their 
astonishment that no boy or girl in this country is devoting more than two 
and a half hours a day in school to study, and the maximum amount of time 
under the supervision of the school will not reach more than seven hours, 
giving the child five to eight hours for idleness on the streets and alleys. 

We do not need to discus* what idleness does in the forming of 
character. We know that only too well, as is shown by the response that 
has been given to the play-ground movement all over the country. We are 
all agreed upon that one thing. Further, we all agree upon the fact that the 
child cannot have his character formed by having an adult talk to him. In 
my opinion, the worst possible kind of a school is a massive building of 
brick and stone for keeping children Quiet in sort of straight- jacket, and 
having a teacher talk at them. Children are annihilated in such a school, 
not educated. Ihe traditional class-room study school building may answer 
very well for the mechanical study of text-books. But real education 
demands much more than the formal study of the text-book. The new school 
gives the child one-fourth of his time for the formal study of text-books 
and for the formal organization of what he has learned during the remaining 
three-fourths of his time in real activities. The addition of facilities for 
real activities in a combined workshop, playground and school makes real, 
genuine education possible. The new school does not dispense with books 
or culture. It provides for a more efficient use of books and a more genuine 
and thorough acquisition of culture. 



Self-Activity the Aim of the School 

When the child is interested in the work and activities of the school, 
when he has developed a power of application and concentration, when he 
is in a condition where he is capable and anxious to put forth tremendous 
effort to master the difficulties of the school, then it is easy and natural for 
the time and energy of both teacher and pupil to be used efficiently. 

As adults we say, "If I had my school days to live over again, I would 
improve my time better. When I had the opportunity as a child, I did not 
want to educate myself." I think that is at the root of the whole problem. 
Is there any way by which these children can be gotten into the condition 
where they want to educate themselves while they are still children? Have 
we as adults awakened to the need of education because somebody has 
talked to us, or is it because every day we are disappointed that we cannot 
do things that we would like to do, or, because of our insufficient prepara- 
tion, we cannot have things that we would like to have. These thoughts 
now rise to awaken us to the need of proper training. 

Now, if we could do that same thing for the child; if we could make 
it possible for him to be disappointed because he did not know his arithmetic 
or his English or his geography, just in the same way as we are disappointed 
in our lack of training, then that child would awaken to the need of training 
before it is too late. If the school could provide a real life so that the 
child would want to educate himself at the very moment that he has the 
opportunity, the universal problem of keeping the children in school would 
be solved. 

We have attempted to do that thing in Gary, by providing just as 
adequately for the child's play and work and amusement as we are providing 
for his studies. We do not believe that any child can develop character — 
develop it in the way we wish that he should — by sitting in a school room 
and having a teacher talk at him. Character is the ability to do things in 
the right direction. Character is to have formed good habits by doing things 
in the right way, and not by hearing some one talk. If we can get children 
to do things every day, when they get to be men and women they will 
continue to do those things because they have become established habits in 
their lives. 

When it comes to giving children the opportunity for play and work 
and amusement, and also for their studies, we wished in Gary to provide 
just as efficiently for their studies as any school ever did in the past, and 
more so. We desired to remove the excuse of the school for not teaching 



the boys and girls language, mathematics, and history, because they do not 
have the power of application — do not have the power of concentration. 
We hoped to send those children to the study room filled with the desire 
to know things, to send that boy to his arithmetic teacher with the same 
desire for that arithmetic work that he has for baseball out on the play- 
ground. We wanted the boy to look with the same delight upon arithmetic 
as he dees upon baseball ; and then if that teacher, if she is a teacher of 
ability, could not teach those children, bubbling over with enthusiasm, there 
is something radically wrong with the system. But instead of selecting that 
teacher alone from the standpoint of a teacher, instead of selecting that 
wonderful genius who through her extraordinary personality can take a child 
in an ordinary school room seat, and hold him rigid and quiet during four 
or six hours a day, and teach him through book training, we are going to 
employ the ordinary bright, intelligent men and women who will come there 
with the desire to know and to learn, and to teach the children the power 
of application. 

The Gary Idea 

As to whether that sort of thing is actually in operation in Gary or 
not, I do not know that we can be absolutely sure. While statistics are 
always questionable, we have some indications that our experiment has been 
more or less successful. In Gary we are not required by law to be in school 
more than five hours a day, or to be exact, five hours and fifteen minutes, and 
yet the great majority of our students average eight hours a day, thus 
spending two and three-quarter hours in addition to the five and one-quarter 
hours which they are required to spend there. And while our children are 
required to be in school only five days a week, yet we open our school on 
Saturdays, and from one-half to three-fourths of our children spend from 
three to seven hours of that day in school ; and they do not come because 
they have to, but, we assume, because they want to. Of course, we have 
no way of telling, but the fact that they do come, and are not required to 
come, leads us to believe that they love to come. The same thing is true 
through our vacations, when from one-half to three-quarters of our children 
spend from three to seven hours a day in school instead of taking the 
ordinary vacations. Therefore, we assume likewise, from the fact that they 
come during vacation time, that they want to do so. 

Another thing that gives us some clue as to their wishes in the matter is 
that when we gave them an opportunity on Saturdays to have only such 
things as swimming lessons, gymnastic exercises, manual training shops, 
science laboratory, mechanical and free hand drawing, etc., we were very 



much surprised to find that a great majority of the children wished to work 
in figures on the blackboards, they wished to have the privilege of going to 
the library and selecting books, and they wished to have classes in history 
and other academic branches. The consequence is that on Saturdays we 
have relatively just as many children in the ordinary academic subjects as 
we have during the other five days. 

When a visitor asks one of the boys in the swimming pool or the work- 
shop: "Well, John, what do you like the best?" he is very much surprised 
to hear John reply, "arithmetic," or "history." The idea that John should 
not like the workshop or the swimming pool best seems too unusual for 
him to believe. 

Now, if that thing is possible, if we can get that child in the way of 
educating himself, of putting forth his own self-activity and directing the 
energy that he has wasted on the streets and alleys, if we can get him to 
desire reading, writing, arithmetic, and all the other allied activities, then 
we have tremendously simplified the problem of education ; we have made it 
possible for that child to educate himself. There is no teacher in any high 
school, college, or university, that has the power to educate a child against 
his will. 

The town of Gary was founded about five years ago, when the United 
States Steel Corporation made its site the center of their plant. They 
purchased 12,000 acres of land, laid out streets, constructed sewers, estab- 
lished a lighting plant, and built houses, which they sold to their employees 
as rapidly as possible, so as not to interfere with the local affairs of the , 
town. The school site was purchased for $5,000 per acre, although some 
of the land sold as high as from $8,000 to $10,000. 

One of the difficulties that confronted us in Gary was the absence of a 
school plant or any property with which we could start. Furthermore, in 
Indiana the realty assessment is made only every four years, and the 
assessment had been made the year before Gary was settled. It is necessary 
to remember that in the past four years property has increased in valuation 
one hundred per cent. We are operating the school now on the value of 
property of two years ago, and while that would not mean very much in 
ordinary cases, the rapid growth of Gary is not ordinary. 



The Four-Fold School Plant 

This difficulty turned out to be our great opportunity. When the Board 
of School Trustees was face to face with the problem of providing school 
facilities for the town, without a map or a desk, or a book, or anything with 
which to start — facilities that other schools have been generations in 
acquiring, they were in that condition when they would be glad to talk 
over any feasible scheme that might be suggested, and give it a trial. For 
eight years previous to this time I had been employing teachers to teach 
children to play as well as to work with a considerable degree of success, 
and I made this proposition: "Gentlemen, if you will permit me to employ 
persons who know how to occupy the time of the children out of doors, 
in all sorts of sports and games, I will take care of one- fourth of the 
entire school population without any buildings at all, and I will not only 
take charge of one-fourth of your school population during the traditional 
five hours a day without any buildings, but without any additional employees 
as well." 

My proposition was accepted. We took a man from the agricultural 
college, who knew how to take care of the lawns, the trees and the shrubbery. 
Not only was he to attend to these things, but to take the place of a teacher. 
Our children, we knew, would be delighted to learn about the trees and 
plants and shrubbery, and a great many children would be taken care of in 
that way. 

Then we made another proposition. We asked to have a small auditorium 
built in our school, where the teacher and the children could come, and the 
children could be instructed by means of the stereopticon, in subjects like 
history, where the teacher could illustrate what he had to say. This 
auditorium could be utilized by the music teacher in bringing the children in 
contact with good music through concerts, cantatas, operettas, etc., and in 
that way we could provide for the recreation of these young people, as. well 
as make it possible for the teacher to talk effectively to four or five hundred 
children at once. In addition to these accomodations, we would take care 
of another fourth of the children with the ordinary class rooms. 

This simplified our problem immensely. At the present time we have 
school facilities for eight thousand children. Our problem of providing 
school facilities, as compared to that of the ordinary traditional school, is 
just about one-fourth of what it would otherwise have been. One might 
think that these other things would increase the cost of the school system 
tremendously, but let us consider. We do not need as large play-grounds 

8 



as the ordinary schools. All of our children are not out at recess at one 
time. We have one-fourth of our children playing all the time ; one-fourth 
of them are in the shops, one-fourth in the auditorium, and one-fourth in 
the class rooms. When the people in Gary found out that these were good 
things, even though they were not costing very much, they wanted to do the 
thing right For instance, they said : "We don't want our manual training 
shops down there in the basement. We want them up above the ground, 
with lots of air and light and sunshine in them," That, of course, increased 
the cost. And then they said: "We want a good gymnasium, and a 
regulation swimming pool, so that records will stand," so a gymnasium was 
built fifty by eighty feet, with a swimming pool twenty-one by sixty feet. 
We have locker rooms for one thousand men, women and boys, and the 
men and women from the town come and use that swimming pool. 

How do we accomplish all this? In the first place, we must remember 
that the Gary school system is able to operate its entire plant at one time: 
we have children in the class room, in the work room, on the play-ground, 
and in the music room all the time, and therefore the cost per child is less 
than in the established system, because we increase tremendously the size of 
our plant. We can build a study room for $40 per child, our twelve acres 
of play-ground costs us only $25 per child, and our work shops $135 per 
child. The class rooms cost $200, making a total of $400, provided you use 
only one thing at a time, as is done in most schools. What we do is to keep 
four sets of children going all the time, and exchanging places with each 
other. In the four departments of our school system we so limit the time 
as to accomodate four groups instead of one, thus making the per capita cost 
only $100 per child, instead of $400 as it would be in the ordinary school. 

We do not talk much about social centers in Gary. If you asked for the 
social center, the people would not know where it was. But our school 
provides a recreation center free for everybody to use. We have an audi- 
torium large enough to seat from nine hundred to a thousand people, with 
a stage fifty feet deep and fifty-five feet wide, large enough to stage almost 
anything. We have large music rooms which are not only used during the 
day, but at night as well, in consequence of which the children gather there 
in the evenings instead of on the street 

Play- Impulse Changed Into Work-Impulse 

One of the questions that was raised in connection with our work was 
whether the fact of having a recreation center would not take away from 
the serious feature of the work. We believe most thoroughly in trans- 
forming play into work-play. We wish the children more and more to take 

9 



the same delight, the same pleasure in their work as they do in their play. 
We want to transform that work in part into play, but not all of it. The 
play impulse is transformed into a work impulse, so that real pleasure is 
experience in work. The school life creates a need and desire for the 
academic and cultural work of the school. There is no attempt to remove 
the difficulties. The supposed distasteful work of the school is not sugar- 
coated with sentimentalism. The wasted time and the misdirected energy 
of the street and alley are utilized to awaken ambition, develop initiative and 
create power in the child, so that he can find real joy in the mastery of diffi- 
culties. The child is busily and actively engaged the year round educating 
himself. 

Several weeks ago a boy told one of the teachers that over at the coke 
ovens they were not getting the proper results in the testing of the coal used 
for the making of coke. He said that the men who had been testing it for 
the ovens had not arrived at the proper amount of sulphur which they knew 
to be in the coal. So this boy asked permission to make an experiment in 
our laboratories, which he did, with the result that his analysis showed the 
exact amount of sulphur which should be in the coal, and which every one 
knew was there. This incident shows the relation which the work of the 
school bears to the community. 

We employ a man to take charge of the heating plant, but we employ 
him not only for that. When a boy reaches a certain stage in his life, he 
wants to know how to erect a generator or a dynamo or a motor. In Gary, 
he gets on his overalls, and he learns from this engineer how to build and 
operate an engine. There is no reason why the school engineer should not 
be selected because of his teaching ability as well as his mechanical skill. 
The boys can work with this engineer as apprentices during certain hours 
in the day and learn to fire boilers, operate pumps, engines, generators, 
motors, heating and ventilating machinery. There is no reason why the 
school furniture and much of the equipment cannot be made in school 
cabinet shops under the direction of a cabinetmaker selected for his teaching 
ability as well as his mechanical skill. There is no reason why the school 
painting, stage scenery, plumbing, electrical work, carpentry, printing and 
bookbinding, forging, foundry and machine work cannot be done in the 
same way. Every part of the school plant can be made an educational 
opportunity. 

We try to do the same thing all through our work. We do not employ 
a young lady who has studied a little botany to come to Gary to take charge 
of our boys, but we get a practical scientific farmer, who will take charge 
of our planting as well. This kind of work is no longer janitor work, but 

10 



a very high type of activity. We employ a carpenter in the same way. Our 
music teacher is selected from the standpoint of teaching ability as well as 
musical skill. We do not believe that a music teacher should teach drawing, 
nor that a language specialist should teach music. Thus the plan of teachers 
trying to teach things that they do not know is eliminated by means of 
special supervisors; and the size of the classes is arranged so that whether 
they number four students or four hundred, they are the best possible 
groups for the work in hand. 

The Child, Both Body and Mind 

We are convinced that only a small percentage of our population are 
book-minded. There is a certain group, however, that can make a business 
of the study of books, and we need them, and should give them every 
opportunity to develop their talents ; but we must do something also for the 
people who are not book-minded, and they are a very large majority. 

So many of our studiously inclined children get to be very weak 
physically when they grow up. What we are trying to do is to prevent this, 
and through open air play, to get them into a physical condition that will 
make it possible for them to do even more with their studies than they 
would otherwise do. The result of all this play is, 'we believe, to create 
within them a desire for a better physical condition, just as much as to 
create a desire for the greater things of education. 

Recently I had the pleasure of being in an open air school in Phila- 
delphia. The open air school is all right for the four or five hours a day 
that the children are in it. But where are they before they come there, and 
where are they after they leave the school? I said to them: "I think you 
are doing one of the greatest things that has ever come to our educational 
life. But of what value is it if that child is shut up before he goes to school, 
and shut up after he comes home?" In Gary, we do not wait until he has 
tuberculosis before we give him the benefit of the fresh air. 

Some parents come to me, like Mary's mother, and say: "You must 
not send Mary out on the play-ground. She can't stand this outdoor llfi 
in the winter time. It will kill her." 

What do we do ? We simply say to that person : "You may rest easy 
about Mary. We are not going to make a child go out against her will." 

In three weeks that mother returns and says : "Why, what has happened 
to Mary? She eats twice as much as she used to, the color has come back 
to her cheeks, and she seems to feel much better in every way." 

11 



"Why," we tell her, "Mary went out in the open air with the rest of 
the children." 

"Didn't you tell me that you would not let Mary play out on the play- 
ground ?" 

"I did not say that. I simply said that we would not compel Mary to 
go out against her will.* 

We had the case of a boy who came to us from Pittsburgh, who had 
had a sunstroke. His parents wanted him to come to school, but he could 
not study. We consulted his family physician, and asked him whether he 
thought it would be wise to have the boy come to school, and simply let him 
go out on the play-ground. He thought that might be all right. In six 
months' time the boy was able to take up a few studies, and in two months 
more he was able to take up his regular work and was doing it easily. 

We had another case of a boy who came to us in the fall, who was to 
have an operation performed in the spring. The parents said if we would 
keep the boy for two or three months and then excuse him early in the 
spring, they would consider it a great personal favor. The first of May 
came round, and the boy was taken to Chicago. When the physicians 
examined him, they asked whether this was the same boy. On being told 
that it was, they said, "Well, he does not need an operation." The outdoor 
activities of the child had so changed his physical condition as to remedy 
the defect they had expected to take away from him by the knife. I believe 
that it is possible to give all our children the advantage that these few 
children have had. 

Books Not the Only Teachers 

We do not want children to play all the time. They do not want to 
play baseball all day, any more than they want to be in the swimming pool 
all day; and so we arrange for the teachers who are out of doors to give 
all their time to the practical work. We try to make the outdoor activities 
cover everything they can possibly need. For instance, the teacher will say 
to them, "Let us build a house." First they ascertain what kind of a house 
they want to build; then after they have decided that, they make a drawing 
of it. They take a yard stick and measure the foundations. They lay out 
the foundation, and figure out how many yards of dirt they will excavate, 
what the cost per square yard will be, and what the entire cost of the 
excavation. They figure out the cost of putting up the walls, of laying 
down the concrete, and putting in the carpenter work, the decorations, the 

12 



heating and lighting. When they have their house all built, they have to 
pay taxes on it, and must take out an insurance policy; as they have no 
money to pay for it, they must borrow some, and take out a mortgage; so 
that by the time they have finished building that house, they have actually 
lived through evary mathematical experience in that entire range of work. 

We believe in books. We believe that the child ought to have an 
opportunity to study books ; that he should have an opportunity of studying 
his arithmetic and then applying the principles in every day experiences. 
We do not wish to throw books away at all. We believe that they are one 
of the greatest blessings that civilization has ever brought to us, but we do 
not want to have our teachers make the students feel that all they ever 
learned about arithmetic was obtained from books. 

When a child sees the larger children playing games or building a 
house, or doing anything which requires a certain knowledge of arithmetic, 
and knows he is counted out of the game because of his lack of education, 
he experiences just as real a disappointment as any adult ever had, and the 
result is that he will have just as keen a desire for his arithmetic as for any 
of his play-ground activities. In this way we have many devices by which 
we create these needs in the children. We give the boys a chance to organize 
political societies and exercise the right of franchise. We give them the use 
of the auditorium, where they may come to make political addresses, and it 
would surprise you to hear these "candidates" appeal to the boys and girls, 
and make all kinds of promises of how they would serve the school if they 
were elected. You know in Indiana there is much agitation at the present 
time for a commission form of government, so this fall our boys had a 
commission government election. 

Some persotlB have occasionally questioned the form of training we 
give the child. They have raiseu the question as to whether this sort of 
general training did not have a tendency to make the children unable to 
concentrate their attention along any one line, to make them unable to think 
about one thing until they got results. We feel, however, that one difficulty 
with the old form of training is that it is narrowing. If you brought an 
adult painter into this room, he would see only those things that pertain to 
his trade, because he has been trained to believe that in order to make a 
success of his business he must keep his attention riveted along the one line. 
We claim, on the other hand, that the work and the play that we give the 
child is of such a character that it will furnish him with both general training 
and the power of application and concentration. Indeed that is the principal 
end we art working far. 

13 



In our schools we wish to make the child self-active, to interest him in 
his work for his own sake. We wish to make it so that the home cannot 
blame the school because the child £omes to school without the desire or 
inclination for knowledge, for we believe it is the function of the school 
to create that desire. We do not want the home to blame the school because 
our children do not have the elements of character they ought to have. The 
streets and the alleys will overcome everything the home can possibly do in 
building character, so it is our ambition to provide just as efficiently for the 
work and the play of the child as for his study. Thus, by removing the 
opportunity for idle time spent in streets and alleys, and by placing the child 
under the helpful, constructive influence of the school throughout the day, 
we hope to develop a full rounded character, as well as an efficient school 
product. 



-xunnni ur CUNURESS 



022 165 395 6 

The Public Education Association 

Stands lor the most efficient school administration ; 

Maintains a bureau of educational information ; 

Conducts research in local conditions ; 

Urges industrial training ; 

Is organizing a vocational g 'dance bureau ; 

Works for the complete equipment of the child for life ; 

This is a co-operative service for the children of Philadelphia 



Officers and Directors 

PRESIDENT 

MR. OTTO T. MALLERY 

VICE-PRESIDENTS 

DR. JOSEPH SWAIN MISS DORA KEEN MRS. EDWIN C. GR1CE 

SECRETARY TREASURER 

MR. JAMES S. HIATT MR. E. PUSEY PASSMORE 

DIRECTORS 

Mr. E. J. Berlet 

Mr. W. Marriott Canby 

Mr. J. W. B. Carson 

Mr. George P. Darrow 
Mr. Maurice Fels Mr. John T. Emlen 

Miss Vida Hunt Francis 

Mr. George Henderson 

Dr. C. J. Hexamer 
Mr. Leslie W. Miller Mr. George C. Krusen 

President M. Carey Thomas 

Mrs. James D. Winsor, Jr. 

Dr. Lightnrr Witmer 

Dr. A. Duncan Yocum 



For Membership 

Active: $2.00 Sustaining: $10.00 Life: $100.00 

Apply to the Secretary of the Association, 1015 Witherspoon Building 



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